Summer Science

I remember the day I finally graduated.

I pushed my cart to the check out carrying the BIG jug of vinegar and the BIG box of baking soda.

Because I use those two things for everything.

With enough baking soda and vinegar, I can make my counter spray, and face scrub, my carpet freshener (a.k.a. "fairy dust" -- paired with "sweet dreams spray" it's my super secret trick for clean kids rooms).

With an unlimited supply of those two ingredients I can clean laundry and dishes and drains, sinks, my oven ... oh, and you know, cook and stuff.

Until they disappear ... and I find these two making some kind of concoction.

They do always ask first, but when your kids come to you and say, "Mama -- can we do some science?" it's really hard to say no. It's like if they said, "Mama, can we clean out the car?" or "Mama, can we give you this cupcake?"

Our summer started in earnest last week, and on Friday, a friend gave use some science books from when her sons were growing up.

Flipping through them, we saw lots of fun experiments, and so over the weekend, we pulled out our old play stand. Since its arrival as a bake shop a few Christmases ago, it's been a bank, a post office, a veterinary clinic, a store, a restaurant and a fruit market.

It's now our Outdoor Science Lab.

(Did you notice the outdoor part? Total Mom-trick to limit mess. I'm lazy like that.)

We also bought/found software:

• Baking soda
• Vinegar 
• Glycerin
• Hydrogen peroxide
• Dishsoap
• Yeast
• Agar (Looking for agar? We found ours at a natural foods store. You can substitute gelatin too!)
• Cornstarch

We collected some hardware too:

• Measuring cups and spoons
• Tongs
• Vials
• Empty jars
• A strainer
• A funnel
• Tweezers
• A magnifying glass
• Cast-offs from a garage sale science kit we bought a couple of summers ago
• small notebooks for recording results

With those items collected, the kids set about making cornstarch goo (non-Newtonian fluids! Bartholomew and the Oobleck!), elephant toothpaste, paper bag volcanos, shiny pennies, plastic milk and bubble solution. They also figured out ways to alter the typical baking soda/vinegar explosions by adding other ingredients.

I laid out some lab rules, including that they needed to keep their lab in working order and use ingredients with discretion. Although if they really need more vinegar and baking soda, I totally get it. 

Because that stuff is magic.

** Many thanks to our friend Eileen for her generosity and the inspiration to get us started!

What's at Stake

This is a year of big changes for us -- a new house, new chickens and even a new way of gardening.

Ten years ago, at our country farmette, we grew asparagus, rhubarb, a huge vegetable garden and even grapes. My kids can't believe we had grapes just feet from the kitchen door, but that was part of the beauty of country living. That and a garage in our basement. And horse next door that scared our nervous dog.

From that house, we moved into the city. Like the city, across from a hospital and next to an apartment building.

We tried gardening. We wanted very much to make it work, but it never seemed to happen for us. Some years, we'd get a few tomatoes and herbs. Our mint and lemon balm plants produced more and more, while our vegetable plants produced less and less.

I think I knew we were in real trouble the year our neighbor got a Topsy Turvy and brought us his excess tomatoes. The gardening snob in my just couldn't handle his extra upside-down cast-offs.

And so, when we moved into this house, we began planning right away. Our kind friends even made us a garden bed to get us started, and we planted garlic and shallots last fall.

We've never beed raised bed people -- we instead would borrow a roto-tiller and wrestle with it until we had a trapezoid patch of mud chunks. From there, we'd plant and hope for the best.

But our fall garden bed looked great in the yard, and so this spring we built one and a half more. We've filled our beds with organic heirloom seeds and plants, and so far, our boxes are blooming.

I wish we had room for more, but as it is, our 2.5 beds are pretty packed -- so much so that the usual large tomato cages that we employed back when there was room for a grape arbor take up a lot of real estate in our smaller garden patch.

We decided to try staking them this year instead. I used some old long underwear pants from my kiddos to create strips of fabric. One of my favorite manuals for sustainable backyard living, Little House in the Suburbs, warned against using anything that could dig into our tender tomatoes. They suggested pantyhose. I think I had those one time -- they're like yoga pants for businesspeople, right?

I'm not sure this new approach will work. I may find myself still purchasing tomato cages instead of relying on recycled pants and stakes from the garage, but for us, this year is about embracing the change.

Everything we do may not work. But we will learn. And that learning will make every year to come just that much easier.

What are you growing this year? Have you made any changes to your garden?

Keeping a Family Garden Journal

I was telling a friend today that I think my sentimentality gene is turned up a notch too high.

But a benefit of this is that I like to catalog things. I love to write, and take pictures, and tuck things in envelopes. And that is exactly how our family’s garden journal began.

In a small spiral bound book, we chronicle the things we grow in a little plot that seems to grow itself each year. In a time before children, my father taught me how to plant a basic vegetable garden. He taught me rules, like that you make mounds for cucumber seeds, and that you never ever try to direct sow broccoli (rookie mistake). He taught me how to make mini-greenhouses for tomatoes so that you can start them just that much sooner.

I wrote a few of those things down. They seemed important to remember.

I think now that I should write down how much my dad seemed to come by gardening naturally, and the way he would drain a glass of lemonade while looking out on our work, clearly at home.

But in gardening, I’m learning, there is a lot to remember. Like how tall your child is next to a fully grown sunflower or what type of oregano is best on pizza. Or how your youngest calls the plants “babies” and makes every effort not to step on them.

My son wrote a book three years ago. It is full of stories about our cat, Rigatoni’s adventures. And because every book must have an author page, in his neatest 6-year-old handwriting, his says: "When not writing, Owen likes to spend time in his garden."

I hope both my children will continue to enjoy our family garden project. As long as they do, I will continue writing about it.

I may not be able to grow much inside out home, but I was definitely instilled with a love of gardening and a hyperactive sentimentality gene. Most days, that seems like enough.

What to keep in your own garden journal

Like any journal, a garden journal can be an ever-changing and evolving work. And in a family, it can be a project everyone can take part in. Some things to include:

*      Children’s drawings

*      A yearly photo of your family in front of the garden

*      Favorite seed or plant varieties

*      When to plant, or when to start seeds indoors

*      A map (this is especially fun for a child to make)

*      Family quips, “Mama, do a-squitoes like tatatoes?”

*      Garden tips or resources

*      Saved seeds (in small envelopes)

*      Poems, verses or quotes: “Keep rosemary by your garden gate …Plant roses and lavender for luck." ~ Alice Hoffman

*      Plans, baby. Big, big plans …

Spring at the Springs

How do you know spring is springing? When you see green, of course.

The Garden Goals

The garlic is sleeping. That's what I tell myself sometimes, that the garden and shallots we planted in the fall are resting under the layer of snow outside, waiting to peek through in the spring.

We moved to this house too late to get a true garden going, but as a housewarming gift, our generous friends made us a raised garden bed. Building a raised bed was something I had never tried because it seemed intimidating to me. My son will tell you what I have been saying for years when he brings a Lego construction to me with a question about where a teeny piece goes, "Give me just a minute here ... I'm not great with diagrams."

I would see diagrams of raised beds and think it was pretty complicated. It's not. It's a box. Inside you put some paper bags and some dirt.

But that little box is a start for us. I am so determined this year to grow, grow, grow (and put some seeds in soil to make vegetables, too).

In a perfect world, we would have an abundance of tomatoes to can at the end of the season. We would have fresh herbs, for cooking and tea. We would have cucumbers for pickling and eating, potatoes, Swiss chard and kale, green beans for a girl I know, zucchini for bread and muffins, peas, carrots, squash, radishes, onions, and of course, the garlic and shallots.

But those last two are already there.

They're just sleeping, remember?